Studio desk crits are times when some of the most exciting, mind-blowing conversations take place. Our professor sits with each of us individually to discuss our project, probes our thesis with difficult questions, and helps us push forward to make more potent design arguments (this...

In the final semester before graduating, GSAPPers go on their famous "Kinne trip." Each design studio travels to a different country to research and gain new insight for their project proposals. My studio (with critic Mark Wasiuta and Craig Buckley) traveled to Brazil. We have been...

My third (and final) year at GSAPP just began, and I am trying to savor every moment. I love grad school so much I don't want it to end! This semester, the design studio I am taking is focused on death, or the "uncertain certainty of our mortality." We are studying grief, cemeteries...

Days that lead up to Final Review can be very intense. I took this documentary footage in the CBIP Lab last week. (*Note: While filming, I was waving my arm around and making silly faces to see what would happen.) Then, I used the footage combined with other clips to make a...

One of our tasks in the Columbia Building Intelligence Project (CBIP) Studio was to master CATIA, an advanced engineering/CAD/management/scripting application that has been used to manufacture jet planes. The software is INCREDIBLE, and its possibilities for architectural...

This is the prototype I worked on for "Beyond Prototype" (a visual studies elective taught by Jason Ivaliotis) with Bo Liu, Lalima Chemjong, and Michael Gonzales. Our project, called "Aperture Cells," is a self-supporting component-based partition system constructed out of (3) 1/2&rdquo...

I spent the weekend in FabLab (aka woodshop) to make a prototype for a metal lamp (inspired by a flower bud) with my group members (Phillip Crupi, Alexandra Milo, and Jessica Kuo). It began with the conversion of our Rhino/Grasshopper files into a software called Mastercam: This is the...

This is what Saturday night at 11:30pm looks like in 2nd-Yr Studio. As you can see, 4 out of 4 students are not smiling. While my classmates were working hard on architecture, I was trying to decide what to do for "Parametric Realizations" class. From the syllabus by Mark...

Chalkboard turns into ping pong table at Avery Hall (Michelle vs. Damon): CBIP Lab, where I will be spending most of my time this semester: For Parametric Realizations class, we were assigned to make a box, and spend no more than 1 hr working on it. This is Paola's...

About this Blog

This is a journal of my adventures at Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP) as I pursue my M.Arch degree.
It includes images of my projects, classmates' work, some thoughts, and grad-student daily life.